13Shuffle
My problem is that I seem to encounter an entirely different type of weapon on occasion that seems to be more axe than mace. Any idea what this is? I can see the deviation from a mace to a flail or to the spiked morningstars. These weapons I keep running across seem to be 4 to 8 edged axes.
you probably mean flanged maces like that one:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Buzdygan.jpgwhen you look at it closely you will see that there are no blades on it. There are also other models like
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/5/50/Streitkolben.jpgthat look more like a mace.
Those flanged parts have the same function as the spikes on the morningstar, to vastly increase the preasure put on the part of the enemy where it hits thus even being able to penetrate some plates and put so much pressure on chain that breaking bones was easily done.
To me those seem more like a crossover between a simple mace (any stick whose hitting end got way more weight than it's handle end) and a war hammer. The advantage over the hammer is that it got more sweetspots (i hope that's the right term) to hit the enemy with, the advantage over the morning star would be that the flanges won't bend as easily as spikes when missing the target and e.g. hitting the castle wall and that a morningstar would often hit with more than one spike (which in that case would be slightly offangled to the impact vector). The disadvantage against the hammer would be lower penetration force. There is also the cost factor, making and repairing good durable flanges would require more afford than doing that for the spikes of a morningstar. The advantage over an axe would probably be that an inaccurate hit will still transfer a lot of force to the target, while an inaccurate axe hit may slide of from plate or chain.
edit:
you may also want to take a look at this page
http://otlichnik.tripod.com/medmace3.html